Congress mulling judicial probe into coal blocks allocation issue?

New Delhi: Amid impasse in Parliament over the coal blocks allocation issue, the Congress-led UPA government is mulling ordering a judicial probe into the matter, reports said.

According to sources, the government is willing to go ahead with such a move and end the logjam in Parliament but only if the BJP, which has stalled both the Houses demanding Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s resignation over the coal issue, agrees to it.

Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav has also said that a judicial probe be ordered into the coal blocks allocation.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi is due to hold consultations with UPA constituents and allies on ways and means to break the deadlock in Parliament over the coal block allocation issue.

An indication to this effect was given yesterday by Congress sources who said Gandhi, the UPA chairperson, is most likely to have an interaction with constituents of the ruling alliance and outside supporters.

This came after the Congress Core Group met on Friday evening with PM Singh and Gandhi, holding deliberations with the party top brass on the strategy after the opposition stuck to their demand for scrapping of coal blocks.

Government has already rejected the demand for cancellation of coal blocks and has trashed the BJP demand for resignation of the Prime Minister in the wake of CAG findings on the issue.

Coal Minister Sri Prakash Jaiswal was also called for the Congress Core Committee meeting and so were Law Minister Salman Khurshid and Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal.

Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, who is also the leader of Lok Sabha, was present during the deliberations.

The meeting took place hours after Gandhi held a meeting with senior leaders, including Ahmed Patel, Pawan Kumar Bansal and Shinde as Parliament proceedings were paralysed for the eighth day. The Monsoon Session of Parliament concludes on September 08.

Mulyam Singh Yadav, whose party is a key outside supporter, has demanded an inquiry by a sitting Supreme Court judge into the coal block allocation.

Yesterday, Law Minister Salman Khurshid had steered clear of Mulayam`s demand saying that any response on the issue could come only from the Congress president.

Yadav yesterday joined hands with the Left parties and TDP to demand the judicial probe and cancellation of licenses failing which they threatened to launch a countrywide agitation.

They demanded that Parliament should be allowed to function and to put an end to the "match-fixing" of the Congress and the BJP to disrupt it.

The BJP, which yesterday launched three-day protests across 40 cities on the coal issue, has said it would continue to stall Parliament till the PM resigns over the alleged coal allocation scam, and would organise a nation-wide protest from September 08.

After Parliament`s Monsoon Session ends, BJP and NDA will launch nation-wide protest from September 08 over the issue, BJP national general secretary Ananth Kumar said.